More Articles

View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoChris RussellDISPATCH photosHoucine Chouat leads male worshippers in prayer at the Omar Ibn El-Khattab Mosque on the Northwest Side. Women pray in a separate room.

A common refrain in the days after the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, was that “nothing would ever be the same.” • Ten years later, Muslim-Americans still agree. Life has changed for this group, estimated by the Pew Research Center to be less than 1 percent of the U.S. population. • Before Sept. 11, Islam seemed much like any other minority faith in the United States. • After Sept. 11, Muslims living in America found themselves on the defensive. They know that many Americans have negative feelings toward Islam. They feel suspicion when they go to an airport and other public places. They hear politicians talk about the need to protect America from Islamic law, and they have seen opposition to new mosques in communities throughout the country. • Sometimes, the manifestations are more subtle.

Fatima Salih is bothered by the way a woman who works at Big Lots looks at her and avoids her, even though Salih is a regular shopper.

She said she approached the woman and said, “The way you look at me, it’s like you hate me.” The woman denied glaring at her, but Salih, a native of Morocco, said it’s impossible to ignore.

“She knows me from my wearing” a hijab, with only her face exposed, Salih said. “She doesn’t know me as a person.”

At the same time, Salih said, not everyone reacts in such a way.

“A lot of people, they see you, they come to help you,” she said.

John Esposito is the founding director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The center was founded in 1993.

Many Muslims personify the American dream, he said.

“They are making it economically, educationally, and are increasingly involved politically, and they feel America has been good for them,” he pointed out.

But at the same time, “they do feel they live in a world in which a significant minority of people are suspicious of them, are anti-Muslim, (and) engage in acts and language of bigotry and discrimination.”

Only atheists rate lower than Muslims when Americans are polled about religion, said John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron and a senior research adviser with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

In March 2002, a quarter of respondents to a Pew poll said Islam was more likely than other faiths to encourage violence, while 51 percent said it was not.

By August 2009, 38 percent said it was more likely to encourage violence, while 45 percent said it was not.

Continuing concerns about terrorism and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, fought in the aftermath of Sept. 11, contributed to a decline in how American Muslims were viewed, Green said.

Still, more people have become curious enough to learn about Islam, and that has had positive effects on understanding and interfaith relations, Green said.

For 21-year-old Maria Ahmad, who graduated from Ohio State University in June, Sept. 11 made her more aware of her heritage.

“I set higher standards for myself,” she said. “I tried to be myself, show I’m a normal person, and I’m Muslim.”

Growing up in Mansfield in Richland County and attending Ohio State, she has never faced any discrimination, she said.

Dr. Asma Mobin-Uddin is an American-born pediatrician who formerly led the Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. She said the vulnerability she experienced after Sept. 11, of being “a stranger in my own land,” has made her a kinder person.

“I really have now come to value and feel gratitude for simple kindnesses, for people who appreciate you as a person,” she said.

Munir Qazi, a Pakistani who moved to the United States 22 years ago, said he has seen more animosity toward Muslims in the past 10 years but is still optimistic about his family’s future in America.

Most people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, feel as he does and respect other religions, he said.

He spoke before afternoon prayers at the Noor Islamic Cultural Center on a recent Friday while holding his 18-month-old son, Azan.